A Piece of Glass
by Ekai Ungson
Summary: I have nothing left here for you to shatter. An Asuka piece.


A Piece of Glass  
By Ekai Ungson

DISCLAIMER: Neon Genesis Evangelion copyright GAINAX and other related enterprises. Characters used without permission.

To the people who believed I could be.

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He would grip her hand  
too tightly  
as if wanting to memorize  
how it felt in his  
how the fingers played  
along the rough edges of skin  
as if it would be the last time  
they would walk like this  
under a sky  
where promises forgotten  
have gone to rest.

"Friction"; Maria Teresa Salazar

On the subway train home, she watches the darkness pass idly by in a tunnel of cement and metal lit only by pinpricks of dim orange.

The car was empty save for herself and two others—a boy with brown hair, looking unsure of himself, as he stood beside another girl with skin so pale, she was devoid of blood.

And she thought to herself, morbidly, Given who we are, the car IS empty. A laughable observation; and an utterly mindless one at that, as well.

Her heart did not break.

She settled more comfortably in her seat, her eyes not leaving the sight of her two companions, both of which were standing by the far side, nearer to the doors.

The dummkopf and the doll. It could be almost hilarious, or it could be worse. Aforementioned dummkopf trying—and failing miserably—to pull off an air of nonchalance, trying to make it look like it wasn't a big deal standing next to Wondergirl

even though the car WAS mostly empty.

Wondergirl, however, was being her usual impassive self.

Puh-leeze. Dummkopf wasn't even being exactly subtle. And as for doll-girl-— well, what sort of obscene pleasure did she derive from her game?

She tossed her hair and rolled her eyes. But mostly, she wanted her hands on something especially hard just so she could bludgeon them both with it.

The train halted abruptly at the next station, and doll-girl begins to fall from the sudden loss of balance. 

The dummkopf, however, conveniently catches the doll before she comes into contact with the metal floor. The doors slide closed, and the subway resumes movement.

She notes that the dummkopf has yet to let go of the doll's hand. A-ha. How predictable. Well, congratulations were in order for the idiote! The gutless bastard had to resort to such tactics just for a touch of Wondergirl's hand? Mein Gott in Himmel. He could've just picked it up from the beginning, there's nothing to it. The doll wouldn't mind—- Wondergirl never minded anything anyway.

She turned away and tried to look out the windows. Nothing still but passing darkness.

Her heart did not break.

Today, she will walk home, alone, because the dummkopf needs to run through some tests again. Both him and doll-girl—synchronization and all that crap. That also meant, in short, that she was in charge of dinner tonight lest the multitudes hiding within Misato starve and they, again, turn to the solace of instant noodles. Verdammt. Dummkopf didn't account for much but Misato she wondered with morbid fascination why Misato never bloated up, no matter how she ate.

The silence filling the car was thick enough to be served on toast. She was startled, then, to realize that she-and the rest of them'- had gone to be so accustomed to the quiet that they minded it no longer. Not like there was anything to talk about with these two—- just that

It's a sick, sick way to live, she deduced.

The train halted and she looked up to see the sliding doors open to let both doll and dummkopf leave, hands still disgustingly entwined. She wondered lugubriously if this counted as an Oedipus complex of some sort, or maybe, incest.

The doors closed, and she was left alone.

Her heart did break.

~*~

She entered the little apartment she shared with the dummkopf and Misato and threw her book bag in the general direction of... anywhere. What did it matter, the place was a dump when she first arrived and it remained so and will remain as such until the Third Impact. There was something to the effect of a loud yelp as Misato's abnormal penguin ducked for cover. She paid it no mind.

She then stopped short, her right shoulder socket tingling, as she heard the resounding crash of the bag against some unkown, unfortunate object on the floor. One crack! and she came to an epiphany. 

That actually felt... good.

She picked up a random object-- a plastic flowered bowl-- and hurled it against the wall, just to see. There was an audible crack as synthetic connected with stone, and she let out a hissing breath through gritted teeth.

It was the beginning of bedlam.

~*~

She contemplated matters as she picked up a vase and hurled it away from her, going for force rather than distance. As the porcelain broke into countless little pieces, her heart contracted.

Her heart. Heart she forced to fall in line, obey orders. Heart that did not cry at the funeral of her mother, heart that did not weep at the loss of the first man she had a semblance of love for. Why then her heart and that sniveling boy? She had been through much worse.

Her hands encircled a wooden statuette. She threw it with astounding force and it landed on the balcony, broken in two. 

She does not cry. This she had vowed before the witness of rain and dark clouds and the coffin of her mother lowered to the ground where she now sleeps forever. To this she has remained true for years and years and years. She sheds no tears for death, death of people who believed they were dying for a cause that would ultimately save them. Death of her childhood, her innocence-- she did not weep for these. Neither did she cry from physical pain nor mental torture. She screams but does not weep. Why then her tears for that sniveling boy?

She clutched a book, held it tight, and ultimately threw it down on the low table before her. The book upset the surface and random objects either flew off or fell off. She saw the destruction she had caused and smiled. 

That sniveling, unworthy boy and his doll. His doll, his father's doll, what difference did it make? The son of the man who wanted to be Adam, and ultimately the spirit of Lilith--

And what of my soul?

She is only a doll, nothing but a doll. A doll like the others her mother had bought for her, locked now in a room in a grand house never opened. That place she fled, all those sightless eyes staring at her, soundless voices hanging in the air like spells not cast. She hated that house-- hated those dolls.

A doll like the one her mother held in place of her real daughter. A doll, an unmoving unfeeling unseeing all-knowing doll. 

Why then a doll and my mother?

A ripping sound of paper and the cracking of thin wood as a lamp hit a divider.

Why then that sniveling boy and his doll?

The clang of metal against hard cement as a pot flew and landed.

Why then that doll and not me-- never ME?!

And finally, the sound of bone itself cracking as a young girl struck the wall with a force spawned of lonely desperation.

~*~

She slid down as her own red blood trickled down the wall, eyes still dry but full of tears still unshed, sightless. 

The door opened and a grown woman yelped in shock at the sight before her. Two secinds later Katsuragi Misato walked in and found the child sitting beside the wall, staring at it as if it held the very meaning of life.

Misato took note of the girl's bleeding hand. "Asuka, what happened?"

To this, Sohryu Asuka-Langley replied, "Shinji no baka".

--Owari

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Explanations: This, obscurely, is the easiest Asuka piece I've ever written in my whole fanficcing life. Then again, I AM fairly new at Evangelion fanfiction.

Most people will notice that my Asuka is truly OOC. I realize that and I attempt to explain it. Most people might say she would fight back and not keep her feelings inside the way she was written in this fic (because that is why Asuka is loved as well as feared, because she fights), but I tend to disagree. I wanted to explore the possibilities of an Asuka that was not so forward, so out there, so brash. I believe that behind that stone she is, in fact, a lonely child. 

The doll thing. Um, no offense to people who say that Rei is human. But it IS in fact canon to say that Asuka views the impassive Ayanami as nothing but a clone-- a doll. I also came across an interesting piece of information while surfing the net a while back-- it is presumed that Asuka loathes Rei because of her being a "doll" like the one her mother replaced her with. This is, of course, mere speculation used as artistic fodder. Again, apologies to staunch Rei fans. *ducks*

About Asuka being in love with Shinji-- um, no comment. I'll just say that most of my upcoming Evangelion fics will tend toward the ShinjixAsuka pairing, and maybe even ReixKaworu. That should tell you something about me. ^-^

Charlie D-- my fanart!~

Sincerely, 

Ekai Ungson  
http://innocenceneon.blogspot.com


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